‘What if…?’ marks a huge landmark on Marvel’s ambitious approach to the multiverse as part of phase four of the MCU.
This Disney+ animated anthology series indulges into the different scenarios happening in alternate universes, diverging from the original storyline of superheroes. In terms of the multiverse, Loki is only the tip of the iceberg when compared to this series.
In this show, The Watcher (voiced by Jeffrey Wright), a member of the alien Watcher race, observes multiple universes where superheroes meet different consequences than what we know.
The multiverse can have infinite possibilities, where Peggy Carter becomes the super soldier instead of our known Captain America Steve Rogers, T’Challa becomes Star-Lord instead of Peter Quill or Ultron wins against mighty Avengers and so on.
The watcher only observes those events and makes us ponder, What If…?
Every episode in this series focuses on different universes where different choices made by the same superheroes create infinite possibilities.
However, in the final episode, the main heroes from the previous episodes meet together to stop the total annihilation of multiverses by Ultron and the Watcher has to break his oath to his race: only observe, can never interfere to bring the heroes together.
The season finale gives the audience a climactic battle mirroring the Infinity War’s battle on Titan, with Guardians of the Multiverse attempting to retrieve infinity stones from Ultron.
Marvel seems to deviate from the usual happy endings to dark and gritty endings as our heroes don’t meet the best consequence always. For example, there is an episode where a quantum virus creates a zombie apocalypse and turns most of the superheroes into zombies where they use their superpowers to attack and mutate the uninfected.
What If…? has a great cast and makes the return of many previous cast loved by MCU fans including Hayley Atwell, Samuel L. Jackson, Jeremy Renner, Josh Brolin, Tom Hiddleston, Chris Hemsworth, among others.
This show also makes the last appearance of Chadwick Boseman (played as Star-Lord T’Challa/Black Panther) who died from colon cancer in 2020.
A.C. Bradley did a phenomenal job as the head writer and executive producer of this series.
The plot seemed interesting at first. But as the show progresses, the plot thickens and the episodes in different universes start to have a common sense of purpose when it comes to the question of saving the multiverse.
Animation of this series, led by Stephan Franck, presents cel-shaded animation style with character likenesses based on live-action adaptations which gives a 2.5D comic book art vibe to the show.
Season 2 of this series with nine episodes is also expected to be premiered in early 2022. With this, What If…? is a must watch the show for MCU fans with a penchant for multiverses.
